Private Sightseeing Berlin Tour – History & Major Places

"Berlin is rather a part of the world than a city" Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, Writer, (1763-1825)

Themes of our private Sightseeing Berlin Tour: guided tour to Berlin in general, overview of the main sights of Berlin, everyday life and changes in Berlin within the last 100 years, interaction between the districts of Berlin, government district, Berlin through the ages…

You can select topics or get an overview from us. Write us how much time you have for a tour or which topics are interesting for you and we will make a individualized proposal of your private Sightseeing Berlin Tour!

Berlin has many layers of dynamic history and dazzling present time. All can be shown in one of our private Sightseeing Berlin Tours! There is no better place to experience them than the city center Berlin “Mitte”, literally “middle.” Largely hidden behind the Berlin wall during the Cold War, Mitte provides the clearest window into the city’s medieval origins, its magnificent buildings of the baroque and the classical Prussia. It is here that the Nazis built their power, here wentthe“iron curtain“in the form of an unspeakableBerlin Wall,andhere emergedthemulti-facetedarchitecture of the “investors” after the reunification.

We offer you an insight into the new government district and show you the imposing architecture and art located around Berlin’s grand boulevard Unter den Linden, the magnificentsquaresGendarmenmarkt and Forum Fridericianum, and on the Museum Island.Look at thebig highlightsofBerlinsuch as the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag,the Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe and many more.

In the eastern part of the city you can find the testimonies of communism, the remaining evidence of the division of Berlin as well as fascinating places of the vibrant cosmopolitan city beforeWW2. The western part of the city offers the legendary Kurfürstendamm, the Charlottenburg Palace, the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, and much more …

Guide & Vehicle on you private Sightseeing Berlin Tour

Our private Sightseeing Berlin Tour with your local guide is an unique experience. Our guides not only impress with their expertise (all are academics, many are trained historians) and personality, but have a very strong connection with the region (many were born in Berlin, all at least 15 years living in Berlin)!

The tour is available as aprivate walking tour, a private VAN (or bus) tour or a guided bike tour.

Some places of interest on your Private Berlin Sightseeing Tour

You will discover many places of interest on your Private Berlin Sightseeing Tour. Here a small selection:

Built as a parliament building for the 2nd German Empire, now the seat of the German parliament. THE central place of German history: from the proclamation of the republic in 1918 to the “Reichstag Fire” of 1933, to the storming of the building by the Red Army in 1945.

Behind the building stood the wall until 1989. Today, after a fundamental renovation of the building, a glass dome symbolizes the new, transparent Germany. And what happened to the two masters that did create the lettering above the main entrance: “To the German People”?

THE emblem of Berlin, the gateway to the city! The neoclassical city gate, built in the time of the French Revolution, as in Prussia prevailed strict censorship, was with his “Quadriga” the pride of the Prussian state. Napoleon was the ‘horse thief of Berlin’ as he took the above horses to Paris in 1806. But the Prussians turned it into a tit for tat… Many rulers and their soldiers marched through the gate. Today the gate is a symbol of the German reunification in 1990…

The Berlin Wall, built by the GDR regime on August 13th, 1961, eventually led to the division of Berlin into a democratic West and a dictatorial East. It was only on November 9th, 1989, after more than 28 years, that the division of the city was abolished by the fall of the wall.

A brown mark indicates today the spot where Peter Fechter was shot on August 17th, 1962. Right next to it: the famous border to the American sector to East Berlin. Experience the historical significance of the place and feel the drama of the moment, as here – during one of the most dangerous crises of the “Cold War” – the tank columns of the Soviet Union and the United States faced each other…

Formerly the baroque garden of the City Palace, it is, with the pompous Berlin Cathedral and the Old Museum, a major work of the most famous Berlin architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. Here were once numerous palaces, one of them is being rebuilt. Which one? And why exactly that one?

One of the most important addresses of enlightened Prussian spirit and Berliner culture, designed by one of the most famous Berliners of all times, the Prussian king Frederick the Great. Discover the impressive Opera House, the “Staatsoper Unter den Linden”, the Catholic St. Hedwig’s Cathedral and the famous Humboldt University with the main building and law school, the former library of the “Old Fritz”. And do not overlook the underground memorial to the barbaric burning of books, which was organized by the Nazis in 1933 in this place of education and tolerance.

The building was built in 1936 as the Air Ministry for Hermann Goering. It survived the war almost unscathed and served the GDR as a “House of Ministries”. On June 17th, 1953 did Soviet tanks shot here on the protesting East German workers. In the 90s, stood here the seat of the “Trust Company”.

Today it is the Ministry of Finance. The building itself has not visibly changed. Yet, over the year, it has changed its interior so much…

The remarkably modest monument in honor of the fathers of communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who watch still today on the social justice in the country… From here you have a good view of Europe’s highest TV tower, at the time the symbol of victorious communism. What about the golden cross on the TV tower?

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe(Holocaust Memorial) was built from2003 to 2005 andintendsto commemorate the Jews murdered in the Holocaust under the rule of the Nazis.

The structure consists of concrete blocks (steles) and extends over an area of approximately 19,000 m² in the vicinity of the Brandenburg Gate, inthe historical center of Berlin. It was designed by Peter Eisenman.

Here is the site of the SS and Gestapo headquarters. Here ‘interrogated’ the SA political opponents of the Nazis in 1933. From here, the system of concentration camps and extermination camp was commanded. The cellars are dug up again, a museum and documentation center was built…

But why, we ask, among others, has “the West” then almost all remnants of this building after the Second World War cleanly eliminated?

The Gendarmenmarkt is one of the most beautiful squares in Berlin. Three fascinating buildings give him his character: the German Cathedral, the French Cathedral and the Concert hall (formerly Playhouse). The changing history of the Gendarmenmarkt can be traced back to the 17th century – the Schiller Monument of Reinhold Begas can be admired there again.

The Charlottenburg Palace was built in the years 1695 to 1699 according to the plans of the architect J. Arnold Nering. It was initially thought as a small garden and summer residence for the wife of Elector Frederick III, Sophie Charlotte. After WW2 the conservators needed two decades to rebuild the ensemble.